Through his temporal research, Max Geiger made contact with the Vortoss race and is now their emissary. Ever since he was a boy, Geiger loved fiddling with watches and other timepieces, so it was a natural field of study for him as he grew as a scientist. While the Vortoss race has become unstuck in time and is both in our future and our past, Geiger is in the here and now. He is the Present hero of purple’s faction.

Geiger helps you get to new technology faster by discarding the old, and drawing a new card. At max level, his ability is pretty tricky and has several non-obvious uses. That’s kind of a theme of the purple faction though: requires a lot of clever tricks to be able to play well.

One use of his max level ability is that you can attack with a unit, then trash it and return it to play so you can patrol with it. As a general game rule, when it comes back into play it’s treated as a totally new, fresh copy so it arrives ready (not exhausted!) and loses any extra baggage it might have had. That means it gets cleared of any damage on it and it clears off any -1/-1 runes it might have had too. If you have a unit with haste, you can attack with it, trash it with his ability, then return it to play and attack with it again. Or if you have a unit with runes on it (time runes for example), then you can trash it to immediately get it back with however many runes it starts with.

Geiger is very much about doing things now, in the Present, as opposed to the past or future. Because of this, the Present spec has more access to haste than any other non-red spec. Even the starting deck has this:

Nullcraft can be a headache for some opponents because it threatens to deal 1 damage to anything you want every turn and will rarely get hit back by what it attacks. Only ground forces with anti-air can hit it back, or other fliers. It’s even immune to lots of spells that opponents would like to use on it. The Tower add-on can hit it, but Nullcraft will still get to deal its 1 damage at the same time.

This spell of Geiger’s is also about being Present and ready:

Readying one of your units means you can attack with it, ready it, and then either attack AGAIN or patrol with it. That alone is very powerful, but this spell also catches opposing exhausted units in a time web that keeps them from attacking, patrolling, or using exhaust abilities for a turn.

This one requires a lot of thinking and planning to use well. You’re bouncing one of your units to your hand and playing another. There are a bunch of uses you can get out of that bounce, and a bunch of uses you can get from something else arriving. This is a great card for combo players who want to do ridiculous things. Also notice that the card you play here comes from your codex, not your hand, so a) you don’t even go down in cards overall from playing this and b) you can use your entire codex as a toolbox to get whatever you want instantly, without even waiting to draw it. Notice that you DON’T have to meet the tech requirements for the incoming card, it just has to be the right tech level and cost. So for example, you could return a Present tech II unit that costs 5 to your hand, and you’d be able to put a Future tech II unit that costs 5 or less into play, even if you can’t normally play any Future tech II units at all! I’ll leave it as an exercise for players to discover all the many uses of this card.

Geiger’s ultimate spell is another combo player’s dream:

Research & Development should get you all the cards you need to do whatever you want. You might need a certain combination of cards that have incredible synergy. You might just want a whole lot of cards that are cheap to cast. Either way R&D is a superstar.

Some rules notes about card drawing will help you understand what R&D does and doesn’t do. When you play a spell, you do what it says THEN that spell goes to the discard pile. So it can’t draw itself as part of its effect. Also, as a general game rule, when you reach the end of your deck, you reshuffle your discard pile into your draw deck and keep going BUT you can only do that once per main phase. The upshot of that is if you have 2 copies of R&D, it’s actually possible to play any card in your deck as many as 4 times; any given card can have 2 copies and you can potentially see each copy twice in a turn by drawing enough to cause one reshuffle.

Now moving on to tech I units:

Your starting deck has a Fading Argonaut, but at tech I you get the real deal. A 3/4 for 3 is the gold standard at tech I and this one gets to attack and patrol on the same turn. Sentry costs 1 less but has more specialized uses. It has anti-air to beat fliers and it protects your patrolling units and heroes by reducing spell and ability damage that would be dealt to them.

And now for some really cool effects at tech II. This one is unique in the game:

Chronofixer is a pre-emptive counter to your opponent leveling their heroes and casting ultimate spells. He’s also untargetable, so opponent’s can’t easily kill him with spells or abilities. He can really screw up your opponent’s gameplans if they’re relying on heroes. His art even looks like he’s trolling you.

This guy can summon just about anything through his warp gate. Amazingly, he can get any non-tech III unit from your codex and put it into play for just 1 gold. 1 gold! It’s even crazier that you don’t need to meet the tech requirements for it, so you’re not restricted to just tech II Present units. Warp Gate Disciple is a must-kill unit; if opponents let him live the one turn he needs to get going, they’re probably going to be sorry. If he lives two or three turns, you’ll get overwhelming advantage.

How about a 5/5 that can’t ever be killed? Opponents have to deal 5 damage to Immortal just to exhaust it and get it out of your patrol zone for one turn. Immortal is expensive, but well worth it considering you get one of the most durable units in the entire game.

Tricycloid is a tricky unit. The purple faction does not have any direct damage effects outside of Tricycloid, so the ability to deal 3 damage exactly where you want is pretty handy. Even after you do that, you still have a 3/3 left. The real value of Tricycloid is getting even more runes out of him. Try using up his runes, then getting him out of play and back in somehow. Geiger’s max level ability can do that, and Temporal Distortion allows you to bounce out one Tricycloid in order to get another. Also take note that Tricycloid’s runes are “time runes,” which are the same kind used by fading on Past’s units and forecast on Future's units. Anything that can add time runes to those things can add them to Tricycloid too.

And now for tech III:

Present’s mighty tech III is, of course, an enormous war octopus adorned with battle armor. In true octopus style, he costs 8, is an 8/8, and has an ability that costs 8. If you could afford Octavian, then the following turn you should be able to afford his ability. If you’re allowed to actually use that ability, that should be game over. Disabling 8 units and/or heroes is enough to lock down their entire side of the board, and it will remain locked down forever because you can do that every turn. Purple’s late game power does not disappoint!